flax-golden tales: worldbuilding assistance

worldbuilding assistanceworldbuilding assistance

I get nervous when it’s time for a new world, even though I’ve been assisting for more worlds than I can count.

I try to be prepared, though it’s mostly about keeping things organized.

My favorite part is assembling all the colors. Every color I can possibly provide, arranged from deepest darks to lightest lights, as I haven’t yet managed a system to determine which ones will be needed in advance.

I sweep the floor, twice if there’s enough time.

Sometimes I try to scrub the remains of the last world from the walls, but the walls are hard to clean and they never seem to mind, they say it’s nice to have remnants of the worlds that have come before priming the canvas.

I suppose they have a point, but I like to tidy things as much as I can before the messiness starts.

New worlds are always messy at the beginning.

But they usually figure themselves out.

I’ve only needed to use the extinguisher once.

 

About flax-golden tales. Photo by Carey Farrell. Text by Erin Morgenstern.

art love: ellen jewett

I found Ellen Jewett‘s sculptures via Tumblr this morning and fell promptly in art love harder than I have in quite awhile.

ellen jewett bird

More creatures can be found on her websitedeviantART & custom work is available from her Etsy store.

And of course I couldn’t resist ordering a custom piece. I am giddily excited to see what she comes up with, and I’ll post pictures when I receive it.

flax-golden tales: lonely ghosts in the machine

lonely ghostslonely ghosts in the machine

I still don’t understand why an antique store needs to be open twenty-four hours a day, but the owner is nice and pays well and since hardly any customers come in during the night shift I have plenty of time to read.

The main distraction is the typewriter.

On my second night, one of several typewriters on a cluttered display started making this dinging sound and the keys kept flipping up and I couldn’t figure out what was wrong with it so I gave it a piece of paper.

It typed a lot, though not particularly well. It said hello and made a joke about being trapped in an antique store, or at least I think it was a joke.

I asked the owner about it in the morning when he came in for the day shift and he nodded and said that particular typewriter was haunted and suggested I not give it more than one piece of paper a night.

I tried, but there seem to be a lot of voices in there and they have a lot to say so I buy extra reams of paper and let them type all night if they want to.

They send love to different people.

They make jokes and tell stories.

I think they just want someone to talk to.

 

About flax-golden tales. Photo by Carey Farrell. Text by Erin Morgenstern.

working. slowly.

I had this idea to pile up all my pseudo-research, flavor profile, inspiration-for-the-new-novel things for this post and then I realized it was too much and I didn’t have enough space to pile everything.

So I settled for highlights, along with my most deco lamp.

workingAnd of course the photo turned out all dark and mysterious.

Not going to go through the whole list but the placing of Fitzgerald on top of Bioshock is oddly appropriate, and in a perfect world there would be more poetry, more graphic novels and a copy of Katherine Paterson’s Bridge to Terabithia, too, but I’m avoiding rereading that one on purpose.

I’m still reading and note-taking and pulling bits of inspiration out of dark corners and trying to figure out how to structure everything properly. But it’s difficult to find the best structure while I’m still pulling together building blocks.

It doesn’t even have a title yet.

I renamed a character today, something I rarely do, but I think I needed to and hopefully it’ll help untangle her personality.

It’s not a novel yet. It’s big and overwhelming and not story-shaped. It’s annoying.

I’ve been working on this story for a comparatively long time but I’ve been so busy with other things in between that I feel like I’m behind, when really I’m only just getting properly started.

And I’m realizing I have a bigger world on my hands (or in my head, rather) than I’d thought.

Apparently I am not very good at keeping things simple.

But I’d rather explore things properly and figure everything out and get it right even if it means reading more books and taking more notes and using more of that ever-problematic time. I feel like I have said all this before but I keep thinking about it every time anyone asks when the next book will be out.

Not soon. Sorry. Please have a cookie or a drink (or both) while you’re waiting.

I am going to keep digging through detective novels and mythology, taking notes and writing bits and pieces even when it feels like I’m wandering around my head in the dark with an unreliable flashlight.

It’s going to take awhile.

flax-golden tales: not a real dog

not a real dognot a real dog

Momma says he’s not a real dog. She says he’s “just a statue” and “not a particularly impressive one at that.”

She says I shouldn’t pretend he’s a real dog because he’s not and I am “too old” for pretending.

But the dog tells me that Momma is “speaking nonsense” and I should “pay her no heed” and he talks with an English accent which makes him sound very serious so I keep listening to him, which is not pretending but Momma doesn’t seem to know the difference.

(Momma says he can’t talk but he says she doesn’t listen properly. Then he complains that this “arrangement” is “beneath” him and sometimes he calls us all “peasants.”)

He likes to be placed on chairs near lamps because he says it makes him look more dignified, but Momma always moves him and then I have to move him back and re-arrange the lamps.

He demands (“requests”) fresh flowers from the garden every day and I get them for him even though it makes Momma mad.

I’d rather Momma be mad than the dog.

He bites when he’s angry.

 

About flax-golden tales. Photo by Carey Farrell. Text by Erin Morgenstern.

photo post

Because Tumblr & Instagram have been getting all the photos lately.

high line flowersFlowers on the High Line.

bloodmilk locketMy latest piece of gorgeous bloodmilk jewelry. Rose gold, and it’s a locket, too.

parker penNewest fountain pen acquisition (this is how I know I’m in writing mode, new fountain pens and photo blog posts).

Also I seem to be quite fond of rose gold lately.

vanishing actSpotted this gorgeous cover from across the bookshop and then realized it was my much-loved The Vanishing Act.

I adore this cover. More evocative than the hardcover, I think.

mini sugarsAnd last but not least, in celebration of International Fluevog Day, these are my Mini Sugar boots.

(It is not the easiest thing in the world to take a picture of your own boots.)